Posts belonging to Category Cabernet Franc

Kris-A and Kris-B visited Ontario recently. If you are not sure where that is… here is a map showing the vineyards. That is correct – Niagara Falls is in Ontario. The Krisses last contributed to tBoW with photos and comments on their trip to the Mosel. These guys have their heads and gullets in the right place – where wine is made and quaffed! It is becoming gradually clear that vinifera is truly a wild vine and can grow just about anywhere. This makes sense when one realizes that the proliferation of vinifera is less than 200 years old! Here is the report from two of our top tBoW team reporters. Since you will NEVER see these wines unless you visit Ontario please read about them now. But who knew Ontario has Wine Country? Check out the link so you can plan your own trip to yet another exotic unexpected land-o-wine. The Krisses certainly make it cool. (more…)

Collectible kosher wines? The thought boggles the mind. How could inky purple Manischewitz syrup with a shelf life of 20 minutes get a Parker rating? Next you’ll tell me there are “growth” Bordeaux, as in those classified in 1855, that obey Talmudic law. Every year there are more customers than there are wines for those lucky labels classified under the five levels of Bordeaux Growths: wines such as Château Léoville-Poyferré a 2nd Growth St. Julien; or Château Malartic-Lagravière an unclassified yet coveted Graves; Château Pontet-Canet a 5th Growth Pauillac; and Château Le Crock a Crus Bourgeois Pauillac. Oh yes. Each one of those highly coveted labels has a kosher “edition.” N’kidding. (more…)

We started “tasting wine” in 1978. We frequented a wine shop in West LA up the street from the Wine House which had recently opened. The shop was located in a bungalow that was once somebody’s home on Cotner. It was the outlet store for The Wine Merchant owned by Dennis Overstreet and located in Beverly Hills. His BH store had all the celebrity clients. The outlet spot was for the lumpen proletariat of LA’s budding wine scene. In 1978 the collector’s find was any Napa Cabernet from 1974. The first wave of Napa Cabernet producers was emerging that included Diamond Creek, Caymus and Ridge. Heitz Cellar was an old guard hot ticket along with BV Georges De Latour. The real sharpies were hunting down old vintages of Inglenook. The good thing about the Cotner store was the Saturday tastings which were loosely formed, spontaneous events. Once a sufficient threshold of aspiring snobs was present somebody bought a bottle and opened it right there in the store. The store clerks were not like the info-matics you find today in upscale wine versions of Target like Total Wine or BevMo [ed. he prefers Total Yawn]. The store clerks at the Cotner store were geeks, folks like the ones buying wine except they had to work somewhere and living in LA was still pretty cheap in the late 1970s so a wine shop was good as any other minimum wage shithole. And you could drink interesting wines when the air got thick with opinions and burning curiosity. (more…)

Three gloriously HOT days. Any wine sipping foo gonna hit the party party party circuit. NowhatImsayin? We did. IGTY had the best babes and the most relaxed scene. But when it came to wine the Krisses ruled the roost at Papa Fred’s Shack. The wines ranged from Northern Italy’s Alto Adige (Lagrein) to two Paso Robles’ Wild Horse whites to several Ros√©s that created a stir. The wine tasters also ranged widely. Necromancer, prodigy, novotiate, tenderfoot, shellback, bashful and laconic. Toss in a garrulous minx and there is the perfect 4th of July bash. Read what they had to say about the wines that washed across their wanting palates. (more…)

Poker players like to say “I’d rather be lucky than good.” Is this just another way of saying you do something often enough you’re bound to fall into something good sometime? Vince Neil and his band were very very lucky. They made superb RnR and at some point Vince made a wine. We have not tasted it. But we do have a motley assortment of other wine odds and ends. [ed. Dude that would have been cool tasting the Cr√ºe wine. I thought you knew people.] (more…)